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This chapter focuses on the experiences of captive men, women, and children during the process of enslavement in Africa. It outlines differences in the captive experience in the three key areas of provenance—the Bight of Biafra, the Gold Coast, and West Central Africa—for the enslaved sent to Jamaica in the final decades of the British slave trade. It emphasizes that at the point of capture, the practicalities of slave raiding did not allow captors to discriminate by age and sex as they selected their victims. In addition to the capture of men and women in the prime of their lives, children...

This chapter focuses on the experiences of captive men, women, and children during the process of enslavement in Africa. It outlines differences in the captive experience in the three key areas of provenance—the Bight of Biafra, the Gold Coast, and West Central Africa—for the enslaved sent to Jamaica in the final decades of the British slave trade. It emphasizes that at the point of capture, the practicalities of slave raiding did not allow captors to discriminate by age and sex as they selected their victims. In addition to the capture of men and women in the prime of their lives, children and the elderly were also readily made captives. African traders sometimes tried to sell such captives to the ship captains. Indeed, when the ship captains were anxious to leave the African coast quickly, the elderly and those children considered “too young” were often purchased.